His brief was to show the aggression that Obama so obviously lacked when the President went up against Mitt Romney last week. But as the dust settles today many will be left feeling that he went too far, tried too hard.

Many women and swing voters will have hated his condescending, swaggering display.

Perhaps the even bigger problem the
Obama campaign will have in the coming days is that Biden, again just
like Gore in 2000, repeatedly exaggerated and mischaracterised for
effect.

And worse than Gore - who was caught in a series of small lies
in 2000 - Biden was demonstrably untruthful in some big respects.

Most seriously, Biden blamed the intelligence community for the debacle that led to and followed the killing of ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in last month's terror attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

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When asked by Raddatz why the White
House had blamed the death of Stevens on protests about
a movie, he responded: 'Because that was exactly what we were told by
the intelligence community.'

There is ample evidence that this was
not the case. From today, expect a number of senior intelligence
figures to come out and say that.

The U.S. intelligence community is not
about to take the fall for what happened in Benghazi just so Obama can
be re-elected.

Even more startling was Biden's
insistence: 'Well, we weren’t told they wanted more security there. We
did not know they wanted more security again.'

That is directly contradicted by
testimony from two State Department officials this week. Eric Nordstrom,
expressed frustration at how his appeals for more resources were
rebuffed.

Lt Col Andrew Wood, former head of a
16-member U.S. military team that helped protect the embassy in Tripoli,
testified: 'We were fighting a losing battle. We couldn't even keep
what we had. There were requests for extra security; those requests were
not honoured.'

Gesticulating: Biden was undoubtedly more active with his motions than his Republican counterpart

Smirk: Biden's antics bemused his opponent throughout the debate

On Afghanistan, Biden said that the
Joint Chiefs had wanted to bring back the surge troops during this
year's fighting season. 'There are people that are concerned, but not
the Joint Chiefs,' Biden said. 'That was their recommendation in the
Oval Office to the president of the United States of America. I sat
there.'

In fact, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, testified before Congress that he had recommended a
less aggressive drawdown timetable.

'The President's decisions are more
aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to
accept,' he said.

Failing to tell the truth about the
professional advice and judgements of intelligence chiefs and generals
is a perilous route for Biden to go down.

There were smaller issues too. Biden
said that Libya as five times larger than Syria. In fact, Libya is
almost ten times bigger than Syria. So much for Biden's much-vaunted
foreign policy expertise.

At times, Ryan seemed a little cowed
by Biden. Certainly, no one could blame him for being bemused by his
antics.

There were points at which Ryan could have held Biden to account
and he didn't. He blinked too when he asked Biden whether he knew what
the unemployment rate was in his native Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Biden
said he did but one sensed he was bluffing. Rather than wait for Biden
to hang himself, Ryan told him it was 10 per cent.

Differing approaches: A number of fake Twitter accounts emerged during the debate due to the frequency with which Biden punctuated Ryan's (right) remarks with a sly smirk

Rubbing off: Though his were not quite as dramatic, Ryan also broke a small smile

But as the night wore on, it was clear
that Biden was all about Biden (who, even though he will be 73 and has
won precisely zero in two presidential runs in 1988 and 2008, harbours
ambitions to run in 2016). Whereas Ryan advocated for Romney, Biden was
blowing his own trumpet.

Ryan made no mistakes and kept his
cool. Conservatives wanted more full-throated arguments for their
policies but Ryan was not about that tonight - his game plan was to be
calm and reasonable and make the case that this election is a clear
choice between bluster and excuses about the last four years and a plan
to change things.

Biden over-compensated for Obama's
passivity last week in Denver. He need to achieve a decisive victory
that would allow Obama to regain the momentum. In this respect, he
failed - snap polls suggested a score draw between the two men.

And by engaging in off-putting
histrionics and displaying a cavalier attitude towards the truth, Biden
was channelling Al Gore - in the debates against George W. Bush that put
paid to Gore's lifelong ambition of winning the White House.